


Shook the Bones of Me

by BossToaster (ChaoticReactions)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Body Horror, Gen, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Shiro (Voltron) Has PTSD - Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Shiro (Voltron)-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-14
Updated: 2017-02-14
Packaged: 2018-09-24 05:15:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9704717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChaoticReactions/pseuds/BossToaster
Summary: Little things begin to add up, until Shiro is forced to face another change about himself.From a request on Tumblr: Shiro has a metal skeleton.





	

 

It didn’t take them long to figure out something was different about Shiro.  Only long enough for them to warm up to each other.

The first time was after training.  They had just _finally_ managed to beat a higher level Gladiator, with enough skill and training that even Allura had nothing serious to criticize.

Hunk whooped, punching a fist in the air and pulling off his headband to dab at the sweat on his forehead.  “That’s how you do it,” he huffed out, beaming widely.  Reaching out, he snagged Lance around the chest and heaved him up with one arm, both of them laughing.

“Damn right!” Lance agreed, kicking one leg into the air.  It was a slightly sad attempt, more of a dramatic flop than a kick, the the effect was the same.  “Victory!”

“Me next!” Pidge called, more than a little mussed herself.  She hadn’t been kidding when she said she sweated a lot, it seemed.  So Hunk grabbed her with his other arm, and spun both of them around in a gleeful circle.

Once Lance and Pidge were both set back down, pressed together and giggling, Hunk turned to Keith, arms spread wide.  “Now you.”

For a moment, Keith narrowed his eyes, but then he sighed and spread his own arms, letting Hunk engulf him in a hug that made his spine bend with the pressure.  “Thanks, Hunk,” Keith managed, voice strangled.

“Of course,” Hunk replied back, tone sunny, but there was a hint of mischief to his eyes.  “And then one for our Glorious Leader.”

“You can have all the hugs you want if you don’t call me that.”

Hunk snickered.  “No promises.”  But he wrapped his arms around Shiro’s waist and _heaved_ up to try and pick him off the floor.

Instead, Hunk stumbled back, eyes wide and mouth falling open.  “Shiro, you’re _heavy_.”

Blinking slowly, Shiro frowned.  He was a larger guy, but he couldn’t be that much heavier than Lance and Pidge combined, and Hunk had only used an arm each.

Then it hit.  “The arm,” he reminded, waving the fingers.  “It’s not very light.”

Hunk’s brows furrowed, and he didn’t look totally happy with the answer, but he nodded.  “Yeah, okay.  Right.  Okay, picking you up was a bad idea.  C’mere.”  He gave Shiro a more sedate hug around the shoulders, then patted his back.  “And now I need a shower.  So does Pidge, or else she’s gunna leave a trail like a slug.”

“At least you’ll be able to find me,” she replied, shrugging without a hint of self-consciousness.

At that it was it for then.

But it wasn’t _it._

***

It would come up, now and again.  Shiro would throw a casual arm over Lance’s shoulder, and he’d nearly fall over from it (”you gotta warn a guy, you’re making me swoon, dude”).   He leaned against Keith’s side on the couch and nearly sent them both falling off.  He lost his footing in training and fell onto Pidge, who was near totally pinned by just an arm and a leg over her.

Shiro was worried.  Shiro was terrified, actually, but that only kept him from looking into it.  He didn’t want to know.  It was just the arm.  It was just his extra bulk.  Hunk was heavy too, but he was more used to carrying his weight: Shiro had no idea how long he’d had this kind of mass.

Yet it never bothered him to move with, and-

No, it was just the arm.

Until the day in the lab.

“Okay,” Pidge finally declared, holding up a little round, metal disc.  “This should be able to scramble all their computers for long enough for me to get it.”

Impressed, Shiro nodded at the tiny device.  “Okay, how do I activate it?”

That was when Pidge grinned, a toothy, curved look that meant she was particularly pleased with herself.  “That’s the real beauty of it.  Interfacing with the computers without it’s own extra code would be difficult.  But we don’t need to!  It has a magnetic base, and that’ll attach it to the back of your metal hand.  When you log in, it’ll use that to send a signal and connect.  Easy!”

Okay, that was pretty clever.  “Well done,” Shiro murmured, and Pidge’s cheeks went just faintly pink.  She nodded happily, accepting the praise.  “Does it need testing?”

“A round of it would be a good idea,” Pidge allowed. “If that’s okay with you.”  She was already moving around him, though, and the hand with the device idly rested on Shiro’s left shoulder to keep her balance.

There was instant pressure, and Shiro grunted from surprise.

Pidge paused.  She took her hand away, and the puck-like magnet didn’t move.  When she tried to wrap her fingers around it and pull, her hand just slipped away.

“Shiro,” she asked carefully.  “Do you have an implant here?”

“Not that I remember,” he answered, and he couldn’t keep his voice from shaking.  “Can you- here, let me…”  He reached back with his Galra hand, and only by letting it stick to his palm there did it finally pull free.

Why did-?  How could-?  What had-?

“I think I need to talk to Coran,” Shiro finally.  He stood on shaky feet, and Pidge latched onto his arm, trying to keep him steady.  At first, Shiro leaned against her for balance, but she let out an uncomfortable grunt and he caught himself, heart pounding.

They were silent as the walked.

***

“Keep in mind that I still don’t have a proper baseline for your species,” Coran reminded, and he wheeled over some large device to the table Shiro was laying over.  Pidge held onto his hand with a stubborn persistence.

“That’s fine, Coran, we just want to get an idea.  And Pidge, you don’t have to sta-”

“Shut up.  Yes, I do.”  Pidge glared at him, eyes flashing, and Shiro subsided with a nod.

Coran glanced between them both, then nodded.  “Alright, give me just two ticks.” The device looked almost like the lights from the dentist’s office, other than that it wasn’t absolutely blinding as he ran from Shiro’s head down to his feet.  “There we are, and we’ll give it a moment to compile that all.  Have you been feeling alright, Number One?”

“Same as since I escaped,” Shiro replied, which was the really terrifying thing.

Pulling up the hologram projection, Coran sat down on Shiro’s other side, then tugged forward what looked like a silhouette of Shiro’s form.  “Now, what kind of metals could we normal expect in a human body?”

Shiro paused, considering.  “Our blood contains some iron. But it’s small amounts, so nothing that could cause a magnet to stick.”

“And there’s stuff like fluoride in bones.  But these are all micro and macro level stuff. Not enough to really show.”  Pidge frowned.  “How much did you find?”

For a moment, Coran hesitated.

Shiro’s stomach plummeted.

“I’m going to assume this isn’t typical then, correct?”  Coran pressed a button on his pad, and the pale silhouette suddenly had a skeletal structure, glowing in bright blue lights.  “This is where we detected significant amounts of metal. The brighter it is, there more there was.”

It was shining like a penlight.

Shiro’s entire bone structure, with the exception of his head, was _totally metal._

“That doesn’t make any sense!” Pidge let out, her mouth falling open.  Shiro could see her mind going behind her eyes, making connections terrifyingly fast.

So was Shiro.

Because it was just supposed to be the arm.  There was his hair yes, and the scars, but those were external, those were injuries.  How could Haggar even do that?  Had she cut him open and changed his bones, had she made what was already there metal?  Was that possible?  How could that possibly work, how deeply had she gotten her claws inside his body, what else was artificial, what was left of him that was real?  Was this even his body?  What parts of him were still _Shiro?_

Distantly, he heard Coran trying to speak with him, heard Pidge turn on the comms and start asking for help, but it barely registered. The magnitude of the revelation crowded out everything else, even when more voices started to talk to him.  

A hand rested on his arm and Shiro yanked it away, heart pounding.

No, they shouldn’t touch him.  They shouldn’t _touch him_ who knew what he was.  Who know what Haggar had done, what kind of monster he was under his skin. That’s what Haggar did, she made monsters, tore them apart and remade them as she wished - into killers, into machines, _Shiro was one of her machines._

He had to see. Shiro had to know it was true, had to know how deeply Haggar and ruined him.  Had to know if he was like-

_The beast screeched as it was held in place by metal bands.  Shiro winced, because he’d made noises not too different from that before, held down the same way.  Not for the same thing, not yet.  Not yet._

_Haggar raised her hands, and they crackled with energy.  The beast screamed again, fought to be free, but eventually sent still.  Instead, a machine across the room lit up and began to stir._

_Later that day, Shiro was shoved into a room with that beast and told to_ survive, _if you are worthy of me, Champion._

_He did._

Shiro had to know.  

Reaching out suddenly, he grabbed hold of one of the small knives on the table, used for cutting bandages or opening packages.

Instead, Shiro brought it to his finger and sliced.

Vaguely, he heard the voices around him get louder and terrified, but it was all so distant compared to the gush of hot, red blood over his hand.

And more importantly, the glint of dark silver against the tip of the knife, barely visible through the blood.

That was when Shiro passed out.

***

When Shiro woke up, his finger was bandaged and he was in his room.

A quick glance around proved that whoever had brought him here had also removed anything sharp.

Guess he couldn’t argue with that.

Slowly, he sat up and stared at his hands.  One looked normal, the other the weapon the Galra had attached to him.

Both were fakes, but one was at least honest about it.

The signs had been there.  His weight, for one, but what he could take now, too.  The fight with Sendak suddenly made much more sense, how the electric shock had hurt him but taking direct hits on the arm had barely phased him.

He was a robeast.

Mechanically - no, that implied some part of him wasn’t mechanical, it he _always_ mechanically moving now, Shiro was _not in his own body_ \- he stumbled through his room and into the castle.

It was late.  But what did it matter?  Did Shiro need sleep anymore? He was tired, but he was able to survive. He probably didn’t need it, just craved it as part of his attempts to look human again, to look like he wasn’t a monster.

On autopilot - oh, wasn’t that appropriate - Shiro arrived at the Black Lion’s hanger.  She towered above him, huge and quiet.

Did the lion know what had been inside her cockpit?  Did she care?

The eyes lit and the head dipped, letting him in as he stepped forward.  

“I need to go,” he admitted. “And then I need you to come back without me.”

All he got was a mental scoff.

“I’m serious,” Shiro replied, shoving his desperation down the connection.  He couldn’t stay here.  He had to _go._

There was a feeling like a gust of wind along the back of his neck, making him shiver and pause.  It took him a moment to realize it was a _sigh._

Behind his eyes, the image of the Black Lion without the planting or wiring flashed.  A metal skeleton.

A metal skeleton.

_You are not what Haggar made you.  You are mine._

No, the lion didn’t understand, Shiro was exactly what Haggar had made him.  Literally, physically, he was fundamentally put back together in her image.  He was wrong, he was a machine, a beast-

_No.  You are different.  You are a warrior, not a monster. Not a beast, but a lion._

Shiro froze, his heart hammering in his chest.  He didn’t understand.

_You may be heavy, but you are light compared to me.  You will stay, Paladin._

Shiro slumped in the seat, staring at the blank displays.  He was shaking again, he knew, and his chest felt tight around his heart.  

It was disconcerting, to get something so close to _words_ from the lion, but not nearly as strange as the content of them.

Lion.  He was like the lions.  They were mechanical, yes, but they were alive.  They fought.  They did what they wanted, regardless of original intent, and bonded with who matched them.

_You are not a weapon.  You hold a weapon.  You are a lion with teeth and claws.  You may use them as you please._

Tears filled Shiro’s eyes, blurring his vision of the dark screens, then dripped down his cheeks and splashed onto his lap.

There was something comforting about the fact that he could still cry.  Something human.

 _I will,_ Shiro replied, through the same understanding the Black Lion sent to him. _I will use this._

After all, there were a lot of uses for having a reinforced skeleton when it came to protecting his team.

Closing his eyes, Shiro curled up on the chair, making himself small.  The tears continued to spill past his lids, and Shiro didn’t fight them.

He didn’t sleep.  He wasn’t sure he needed to.

But he rested, and that was what Shiro needed.

 

**Author's Note:**

> If you thought Shiro had a tendency to ignore his own health and safety before, wait until he thinks he's a terminator now.
> 
> But that's another story.
> 
> Want more? Head to my [tumblr!](http://bosstoaster.tumblr.com)


End file.
